Cathie Wood’s Bitcoin bull thesis concedes stablecoins won the real-world payment fight

Cathie Wood built ARK Invest's Bitcoin case on the idea that Bitcoin would become a global monetary layer that is programmable, borderless, resistant to inflation, and eventually dominant in payments. The latest version of that argument concedes that stablecoins got there first on the payments side. In a recent interview with The Rollup, the ARK CEO said stablecoins have taken over part of the role that ARK once expected Bitcoin to fill in emerging-market payments. At the same time, ETF-era institutions appear to be averaging down during drawdowns, softening the boom-bust severity that defined prior cycles. Related Reading Cathie Wood revises Bitcoin forecast as stablecoins gain ground A data-led look at ETF flows, term premium, and BTC liquidity to decode the target cut without the hype. Nov 9, 2025 · Gino Matos Actual stablecoin payments run at roughly $390 billion annualized per McKinsey and Artemis, about 0.02% of global payments volume. Stablecoins have absorbed much of crypto's transactional lane in the markets where Bitcoin once competed for that role. DefiLlama data shows that the stablecoin market cap is over $320.6 billion as of Apr. 27, up over 56% since early 2025, with USDT commanding 59.16% of the market . TRM Labs' first-quarter adoption report found that Venezuela's retail crypto activity primarily runs on stablecoins, with USDT accounting for 90.2% of active Binance P2P Venezuelan bolivar listings and Bitcoin at 1.9%. In Brazil, roughly 66% of crypto transaction volume was conducted via USDT, with Bitcoin at 11%, and officials noted that stablecoins